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FSF Launches Associated Membership Program
Andy Tai writes "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has launched an associated membership program. Support Free Software by becoming an FSF associated member.
From the FSF website:
On Monday 25 November 2002, we launched the FSF Associate Membership
program. Now, you can support FSF by becoming a
card-carrying associate member.
You can find out about the rates and benefits
of membership, sign up to be an Associate Member,
login to edit your membership options, and even read briefly about some current projects of FSF.
" Seems a little odd to me, but what do i know ;)
The way FSF is operating is getting closer to the PBS model everyday.
First, they plead for memberships. Pretty soon they will have a yearly membership pledge drive. Perhaps they will start holding off releases until they can reach a goal of 1.5 million dollors every year.
Second, they will solicit corporate sponsorship. Maybe in the next version of emacs, you will have to stare at an ad disclaiming that "Our gold sponsor is Micro$oft Corporation. Micro$oft. We bring windows to your desktop. (Or whatever their tagline is.)" Perhaps when you do C-x C-h you will see first "This feature is sponsored by GeeEee, GeeEee, we bring good things to life."
The problems with PBS model are two fold: 1) it sure is annoying to endure these pledge drives and the sponsorship messages; 2) the sponsorship messages are not much different than commercial ads. It can be argued that PBS is not that much different than your regular commercial station. As such, it is inevitable when your sponsor will exert influence on your content, especially your editorial content.
Similarly, it is not hard to imagine when a sponsor of FSF "gentlely" suggests that a project be cancelled or a feature be altered because of conflict.
That will be the end of the free software movement.
I see alot of people complaining that the GPL isn't absolutely free, and therefore it's deceptive to call it Free Software. Perhaps, if you're willing to similarly argue that there are no free nations and no free people.
Freedom is not an absolute that you have or don't have. It's a sliding scale. On one end is "Absolute Freedom". Absolute Freedom is only interesting in the sense that Absolute Zero is interesting: useful in theory, but unattaintainable in practice. Absolute Freedom would give me the freedom to, say, murder, rob, and defraud. Relatively few people people would desire that much freedom. By accepting restrictions on themselves, they know that others who might harm them are similarly restricted. In fact, Absolute Freedom probably isn't attainable for a population of any size, someone will take that freedom to use force to remove the freedom from others.
On the other end you have an Absolute Lack of Freedom. This really requires that we all be robots or otherwise completely controlled. If you're into predestination or the absolute computability of the universe, then you might believe that we fundamentally have an Absolute Lack of Freedom. Most people don't.
So we have a sliding scale between these two points. To take a situation I'm familiar with, let's look at the United States. The vast majority of citizens of the United States feel that they are free people. Yet, we accept a large number of restrictions on our behavior. There are laws limiting use of violence; which chemical compounds we're allowed to sell and purchase; when we're allowed to vote, drink, smoke, and run for political office; electromagnetic emissions our computers are allowed to emit; pollution allowed from our cars; what we're allowed to say and where (no "Fire!" in a crowded theatre). Yet with these restrictions, and thousands more, we basically feel that we're a free people, a free society. We're nowhere near Absolute Freedom, but we're free enough. There is naturally a continuous struggle to define what is free enough. Some argue to increase freedom in some areas, others argue to reduce freedom in some areas. Yet we're free enough.
So, back to software. In much of the world, the status quo is that you cannot distribute copies of other people's software. This is implemented through local copyright laws. Most software licenses start with the restrictions of copyright law, then add additional restrictions. Clearly most software licenses are less free than the default. The GPL starts with copyright law, then offers you a deal: you can have more freedom than copyright law grants, but there are some restrictions. You have a choice with software under the GPL: you can accept copyright law, or you can accept the GPL and gain certain freedoms. Yes, the GPL restricts how you can distribute copies of the GPLed software, but it's still better than the copyright default of zero copy distribution allowed. Clearly, the GPL is more free than copyright.
Now, the GPL isn't quite as free as the BSD / MIT / X licenses, sure. But you cannot claim that those licenses acheive Absolute Freedom. Clearly not, since there is something more free than the BSD license: the public domain. In the public domain software just barely reaches Absolute Freedom. Of course, Absolute Freedom is unstable, and naturally any software of value is copied out of the public domain and incorporated into less free works. While works in the public domain cannot effectively be removed from that freedom, their mere existance supports the creation of much less free works.
If we're going to debate the meaning of Free, we need to draw a line in the continuum of Freedom and Lack of Freedom. Would you draw it at Absolute Freedom? If we're talking about Freedom in general, you'll never achieve it. In the case of software, you there is an Absolute Freedom at public domain. Very nearby is the BSD style licenses. That certainly is a very free location on the continuum. It's so free that other people take the free thing and create something non-free. While that's very free, it seems a bit unfair to some people who want spread freedom more widely. If I create something and I want to make it free, why should my work support less free works? So I'm willing to move the line up to the GPL. Clearly less free than the BSD license, it helps to ensure that my donations to things on the Free side of the line cannot be used to support things on the Non-Free side of the line.
Perhaps you feel that the GPL isn't free enough. But for many people it is free enough, and as such can legitimately be called Free software. (To be fair, some people probably feel that proprietary software is free enough. I suspect relatively few people who have ever tried to get additional legal copies of software that was no longer published, or support for out of lifespan software, or wanted to use software no longer supported on modern system, or subjected to a BSA audit feel that the software in question is particularlly Free.)
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> [the] best way to support FSF is to donate code not money.
Those options aren't exclusive. After all, programmers are among the biggest beneficiaries of the "free software" concept, as we are the ones who can actually read, learn from, and modify the code ourselves. Other people can hire programmers to modify free software, but we benefit there too. And what profession gets the most use out of FSF tools such as Emacs, GCC, etc? For me, GPL programming and donating to the FSF is just like being an EFF activist and financial supporter. After all, the FSF and EFF always value volunteers, but they also have very real administrative costs such as office space, legal fees, travel, promotional items, etc. If programmers don't donate to the FSF, what profession do you think will?
> programmer, to do some coding?
The FSF doesn't actually hire many programmers, as they have been so successful in recruiting volunteers. I found this quote interesting from the Kapor article /. just posted:
"Compare Kapor's effort, for example, to the Free Software Foundation, a Cambridge-based nonprofit that led the design of the free GNU operating system. The foundation, which now expends more energy fighting legal battles in defense of free software than creating it, has an annual operating budget of about $625,000, compared to $2 million to $2.5 million for OSAF."
I am very surprised that they do so much with so little. With a $625K operating budget, even small donations can be a big help. But if "all" you want to contribute is your programming talent, that is still a generous gift!